Winch Launch Fatality

On Jun 22, 6:15*pm, Don Johnstone wrote:
Much has been said and written about winch launch failures and here is my
"Guide to Surviving a launch failure"

Launch fails

1 Pitch the nose down, at least approach attitude - snip

I have to take issue since anyone following this advice might/will get
hurt.

If you stop the pitch down at 'approach attitude' from an initial
attitude of 30 - 45 degrees nose up, you will be stalled - the nose
must be pushed far below 'approach attitude" to achieve prompt
airspeed recovery.

This is easy to demonstrate without a winch. At an altitude that
allows safe spin recovery, zoom up at a 45 degree nose-up attitude.
When the airspeed drops to 65 knots, pretend you have a rope break and
push over to 'approach attitude' and stop the pitch down there. Note
the airspeed - it will be around 20 knots. If you turn you will
spin. This is a classic killer on a winch.

An excellent "rule of thumb" that works under any condition is to push
the nose as far below the horizon as it was above it at the rope
break. If it was up 45 degrees, then push it 45 degrees below the
horizon - and WAIT for 3 - 5 seconds for a safe airspeed with an
increasing trend. If it was up only 5 degrees, then go down 5
degrees. This way you won't dive into the runway if the break happens
low and you will get prompt airspeed recovery at greater height.

Pilots not expressly trained to do so will resist pushing the nose
down far enough for airspeed recovery when near the ground. They may
complain this is "throwing away altitude". If you are low enough that
it matters, you will be landing straight ahead anyway and you WANT to
get down. If you're high, you can convert most of any excess airspeed
back into height so it doesn't matter much.

Also, there is absolutely no reason to land anywhere except into the
wind on the departure runway. You can do this with huge safety
margins - even greater margins than with a 200' aero tow rope break.
All it takes is proper training.

If anyone wants to practice this, get a copy of Condor Competition
Flight Simulator, set 'Notams' to winch launch and set the rope break
probability to 100%. You can practice random rope breaks all day at
zero risk.